The sound of wind approaches and grows stronger by the moment. What appears as a small twister of dust, paper and wooden handles quickly swerves into sight, the air shimmering about it as if from great heat. Occasionally a set of rune on a scrap of paper will flare up brightly...

A papyrus wind is a freak accident comes into being when a great wind or explosion devastates an entire library of thaumaturgical writings, most often when of a supernatural origin. The gales tear the scribings apart and scatter them together, releasing magical energies that bind the wind and papers into a permanent force.

The winds of papyrus cannot speak or understand non-written languages. To communicate with one requires writing a message unto some medium and allowing the wind to shred it up. It will respond in the same language of the message, sending out ribbons of paper and parchment composed of a mish-mash of words and letters, or causing words within its substance to glow momentarily.

Combat
Wind of papyrus only attack if they sense magic, its presence exciting them into a frenzy. They will wait until the source approaches, or chase after it if it does not, always going for the wizard and his spellbook or any others possessing spells in written form.

The winds of papyrus natural weapons are considered magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Counterspell (Ex): A papyrus wind may counterspell any spell it knows automatically without having to make a spellcraft check. It may counterspell even if it is not its turn.

Rune Covet (Su): A papyrus wind automatically detects writings of power, including, but not limited to, spellbooks, scrolls, symbols and runes, out to 100 feet. As well, it may detect magic at will as the spell.

Scholarly Frenzy (Ex): Anyone that possesses an item that can be sensed by the papyrus wind's Rune Covet that takes damage from the swarm risks losing these objects. The papyrus wind makes an attack roll (+25 modifier) against the objectís AC or the container that holds it, dealing its swarm damage. If the writing medium is destroyed its pieces join with the swarm, which immediately adds the spell to its list of those it may cast. A papyrus wind that takes a 9th level or higher spell does not learn this spell but instead splits into two identical papyrus winds, each with half of the originalís current hit points (round down).

Spells: A papyrus wind can cast spells as a 16th level sorcerer. These spells can be drawn from any class, depending on the area that spawned the wind. The spells below are for a divine papyrus wind. Though it has little intelligence, it possesses an echo of the spell writer's personality and instinctively knows which one spell would be best in the given situation.

The winds of papyrus does not use any kind of components when casting.

Skills: A papyrus wind gains a +15 bonus to Spellcraft checks.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Winds of Papyrus Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (arcana) can learn more about winds of papyrus. When a character makes a skill check, the following lore is revealed, including information from lower DC's.

DC Result
18 Winds of papyrus is a swarm of constructs that form a group mind, most often found within libraries or temples.
23 Winds of papyrus are created only by chance when a great force shreds mass amounts of magical texts and binds the energies together into a consciousness.
28 Winds of papyrus are said to be able to cast any spell within the books and scrolls that produced it, and tend to automatically counterspell these same spells casted upon them.
33 Winds of papyrus are said to be able to strip spells, runes, and other magical writings right off the medium they were put down upon, incorporating them into itself and learning how to cast them.
38 It is said the winds of papyrus may be spoken to by exchanging written or engraved messages, and possesses the echo of the personality of the writers who produced the writings from which it is made.

martyboy74

2007-06-19, 02:12 PM

Is it possible to create one of these on purpose? By casting Persistant Gust of Wind on a library full of magic scrolls, or hitting said library with a tornado created by Control Weather?

EvilElitest

2007-06-19, 03:00 PM

Wow, that's really quite cool
from,
EE

Assasinater

2007-06-19, 03:13 PM

IMHO, vulnerability to fire may suit it well.

Anyway, a good idea as always.

SurlySeraph

2007-06-19, 08:05 PM

Cool. I don't understand why it uses cleric spells instead of wizard spells, though.
Also, "Scholarly Frenzy" is the funniest name for any ability ever. It makes me imagine a pack of berzerker historians overruning the Library of Congress.

lacesmcawesome

2007-06-19, 08:18 PM

I like it, and I agree with the vulnerability to fire thing.

It seems like a pretty cool monster. A question though:

would clerics/druids/bards be writing down their spells? I think that it would make more sense if like, it could only use wiz/sorc spells, since they would be the ones to write them down.

To me, druids would seem to just *know* the spells, and wouldn't have a need to really write them down in a library.

Also, bards don't seem the type to be that organized

Cleric spells are a bit iffy, as I can see them being chronicled in religious temple libraries, but I also think that they would be written down less.

If you don't want to take out divine spells, maybe you could do something like this:

To determine spell types the Winds of Papyrus can cast, roll a d%

1-74 = wiz/sorc
75-100 = divine/bardic

The Vorpal Tribble

2007-06-19, 08:44 PM

IMHO, vulnerability to fire may suit it well.
Well, thought about it, but these are magical texts after all.

As for the spells, I chose cleric because thats what I was using in my design contest entry I'm using this in.

Archivists, a class from Heroes of Horror, would be the main fellows to have a bunch of clerical texts, but any temple or library could have that sort of thing. If you notice though I said it could have spells of any kind, though it'd be either divine or arcane.

"These spells can be drawn from any class, depending on the area that spawned the wind. The spells below are for a divine paprys wind."

Jalor

2007-06-19, 09:07 PM

Incredible. These will show up in my campaign sometime, for sure.

Marek

2007-06-20, 06:44 PM

Amazing monster, with lots of potential for a suprise attack on players. Oh, the fun I'll have as a DM...

Also, one nitpicky thing. I'm not sure if thou spelt it as paprys in the name "Winds of Paprys" as a conscious choice, Vorpal Tribble, but it vexes me so. I saw it spelled the way I know it, "papyrus", later in the description, so i wasn't sure. Anyway, that's the only fine point. Great work as always from The Vorpal Tribble!

Djinn_in_Tonic

2007-06-21, 12:48 AM

The Djinn thinks that the CR is artifically low. It suffers no downside when compared to a level 16 Sorceror, and instead has numerous advantages, some of which are quite powerful (immunity to weapon damage, more spells known, higher HD, ability to cast and swarm in the same round).

If anything, it should probably be CR 17-19, since it's like a level 16 Sorceror except stronger.

-The Djinn

Angafirith

2007-06-21, 01:09 AM

Scholarly Frenzy (Ex): Anyone that possesses an item that can be sensed by the paprys wind's Rune Covet that takes damage from the swarm risks losing these objects. The paprys wind makes an attack roll (+25 modifier) against the objectís AC or the container that holds it, dealing its swarm damage. If the writing medium is destroyed its pieces join with the swarm, which immediately adds the spell to its list of those it may cast.

Though it has little intelligence, it possesses an echo of the spell writer's personality and instinctively knows which one spell would be best in the given situation.
Let's say that you're a wizard that has feats, templates, equipment, or some such that allows you to fireball your own hex for little to no damage. Let's say that you also have Mobility, making it harder for an AoO to hit. As such, your primary response to being surrounded is fireballing yourself.

You scribe the fireball spell onto a scroll and throw it into the mess. Your party locks it into a melee. If it uses the spell writer's personality to determine what spells to cast, would it not cast fireball (10d6, average 35) on itself?

The Vorpal Tribble

2007-06-21, 09:23 PM

I'll respond to all this in a second but I gotta ask... am I the only one who didn't notice what is in my illustration pic?

Someone just brought it to my attention and I swear it must be an optical illusion of a sort because I only saw random flutterings of paper until it was pointed out to me...

Saint George

2007-06-21, 09:28 PM

Only you can make a creature so interesting that it actually distracts the male brain from its normal paths. Well done.

I saw it right away. I was actually browsing through the responses to see who caught it. I was waiting for the "Heh, boobies" post. Very tasteful all and all though, I likes the picture.

The Vorpal Tribble

2007-06-22, 08:37 AM

I'm just going to have to except the fact that I have a permanently innocent mind...

SpikeFightwicky

2007-06-22, 10:42 AM

How did it get +7 will save? I don't see iron will anywhere and its wis mod is +0.

Also, I'm in agreement that the CR seems a little low. A level 16 NPC sorceror has a 16 CR :smallwink:

Other than that, it's awesome! I love the whole scholarly frenzy flavor.

magic8BALL

2007-06-22, 08:23 PM

hmmm...

VT is an Ettin in the playground... I though with monsters like this, an example of the quality work he consistantly produces, he'd be an Overdiety.

This has got to be amungst the coolest of ideas, backed up with the rock solid stats that I've come to love with your work, VT. This is going straight into a dungeon with animated statues and one of thoses mummy-things made from 1/2 spent magic items found in MMIII (I think).

It'll certainly teach the PC's that a library in an ancient crypt really isn't that safe afterall...